JOHANNESBURG, 3 September 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – A new, accurate, easy-to-use test can diagnose tuberculosis (TB) – including drug-resistant strains of the disease – in less than two hours. It has the potential to save thousands of lives in developing countries, where current tests are often unreliable, take weeks to process, or are simply unavailable.

DURBAN, 3 September 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – Striking public health workers in South Africa have virtually shut down King George V Hospital, a referral facility in the port city of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal Province, which specializes in caring for and isolating patients with multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extremely drug-resistant (XDR)-TB.

MANZINI, 3 September 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – Swaziland has yet to act on a 2006 World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation to alleviate health worker shortages through task-shifting and according to the Ministry of Health, the failure to do so is compromising scale-up of the antiretroviral (ARV) programme.

ENTEBBE, 31 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – A study of HIV-positive people in fishing communities on the shores of Lake Victoria in central Uganda has found that more than a quarter have “recombinant” viruses that might threaten both treatment and prevention efforts.

SAMBURU, 31 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – In the remote and rural district of Samburu, northern Kenya, where paved roads are scarce and motorised transport hard to come by, reaching the mostly pastoralist and nomadic inhabitants with HIV/AIDS services requires an unusual approach.

JOHANNESBURG, 30 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – Veronica* did not realize she had been sterilized while giving birth to her daughter until four years later when, after failing to conceive, she and her boyfriend consulted a doctor.

NAIROBI, 24 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – Intravenous drug users have been largely ignored by the government’s HIV programmes on the basis that drug-taking is illegal, but a new policy is being drafted with the aim of reducing HIV transmission among this high-risk group.

NAIROBI, 24 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – Kenyan government officials have defended the arrest and incarceration of two men infected with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, who failed to adhere to their treatment.

KAMPALA, 25 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – More Ugandan HIV patients are set to receive life-prolonging medication after the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) responded to appeals from healthcare providers overwhelmed by patients by committing to increase its support of the country’s treatment programme.

JOHANNESBURG, 26 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – Journalist and long-time HIV activist Pholokgolo Ramothwala, 32, was diagnosed HIV-positive at the age of 19. He runs his own communications company and writes an online diary about living with HIV. He spoke to IRIN/PlusNews about love, disclosure and discordance.

JOHANNESBURG, 24 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – A strike for better wages by South African health workers is putting the lives of HIV-positive people on the line as industrial action disrupts treatment programmes.

JOHANNESBURG, 23 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – The recent release of positive results from a microbicide trial in South Africa have kick-started discussions between scientists, activists and community workers about the quickest and most responsible way of getting a product into women’s hands.

MKINGA, 18 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – Regina Joseph was beaten up by a group of young men for “dressing indecently” on her way to the local market in northeastern Tanzania’s Mkinga District.

JOHANNESBURG, 20 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – One of the cheapest and most commonly used drugs for treating HIV in Africa – nevirapine – has been associated with an increased risk of treatment failure in a retrospective South African study.

NAIROBI, 20 August 2010 (PLUSNEWS) – Only a third of Kenyans infected with tuberculosis and HIV are receiving treatment for both conditions, despite the latest World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines recommending that anti-retrovirals be taken soon after TB treatment begins.